Step by Step
by Empathist
Summary: One-shot story set in a future in which Brendan and Ste have recently reunited and are giving a relationship a go.


His idea, coming to this place. Course it was.

Could be worse though, he could've suggested a gay club or something, but he knows from experience, that doesn't end well. If he'd suggested it, I'd have said no, but not for the reasons he thinks. He thinks I wouldn't want to go to a place like that because he reckons that whatever I say to the contrary, I'm still scared of being one of them. Gay. Well, he's wrong. I am what I am, as they say. I'll wear that label if I have to, if it means so much to him. No, the reason I don't want to go with him to a place like that is, everyone's eyes will be on him. I mean, look at him: Jesus, how could they not stare, and want him, and try muscling in when my back is turned? And he's so fucking oblivious, he'd smile back, and chatter away like he does; lead them on without knowing he's doing it, because that's what he does. One minute he's a target, the next he's your life support and you'll do anything to keep a hold of him.

So yeah, no, we'll stick to the kind of place where the queers are a manageable minority. That's where we'll go when we date.

Jesus.

:::::::

He's late. Least, I hope that's what he is, just late, cos if he's stood me up I'm gonna kill him.

I picked this place cos it's just sort of normal, and it's in town and it's busy, so it's a bit, sort of, anonymous. Yeah, that's the right word. Anonymous. He's alright now with being out, but that doesn't mean he wants to bump into random people he knows, I don't think. He's alright flaunting it when he's in control of the situation, but he's not good with surprises. He'll get there, hopefully – I mean, he's come a long way – but there's no point pushing things. I learnt that the hard way.

I waited outside for like, twenty minutes, then I texted him. _Im here where r u? x._ He answered straight off, _Sorry. Half hour tops. B._ He never puts kisses.

Well, it's nearly an hour now, and I'm pissed off, and I'm inside at the bar, half way down a pint.

:::::::

What, is he sulking or something? I think this thought and instantly in my mind's eye I see his sulking face, I see his eyes shadowy with resentment, and his mouth, that pout that's meant to say _I ain't playing_, but says the opposite to me.

I'm in the doorway of this club, and the music's worse than the crap we play at Chez Chez, and the place is full of kids, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three years old. His age. I feel like everyone's dad. And there's hundreds of them, the place is packed, I haven't got a hope in hell of finding him, and he's not answering his fucking phone. Getting the cold shoulder, am I? I know I'm late but I couldn't help it, had to stay at work til I could rustle up a couple more staff after two of the late shift called in sick. I texted him, didn't I? Fucksake. He won't have gone, will he?

There's a platform at the side where the DJ is playing. I get on the step so I can scan the room.

"Looking for someone, pal?" a lad in a club T-shirt shouts over the music.

"Yeah. I'm late, so. Tried ringing, but..."

"What they look like?" He's right up on the rostrum so his vantage point is better than mine.

"This high." I put my hand out, level with where Steven's head would be if he was stood in front of me. "Blondish. Tanned. Twenty-three."

The lad smiles like he reckons it sounds like I've lucked in, then he has a good look at the crowd, and points at someone.

"That her?"

What?

Right. The girl in question fits the description.

"No, son. No worries, I'll try phoning again."

I go outside again. I think I want to hit someone, but the cold air focuses me.

It goes to voicemail again: I leave a message this time, "Steven, meet me out front if you get this, okay?"

I hang up, and realise I should have said sorry – again – for being late. I doubt if I sounded sorry; I think I sounded angry.

:::::::

He could at least ring. I could ring him, but I don't want to give him the satisfaction. Maybe I'll text.

I get my phone out of my back pocket, and there's three missed calls, all from him. Shit, I must of not heard it ring over the noise in here. There's a voicemail, and I can just about hear it with the volume on full. He's outside.

I push my way through the crowds and out the door, and I see him a few metres up the road. He looks well agitated. He also looks well fit. He's got jeans on, and his black shirt with the short sleeves, and his arms are massive and his shoulders look broader than ever, and I've never stopped fancying him, even when I hated him.

He's got his back to me, and I go over and touch his wrist. He turns and looks at me.

:::::::

I turn and look at him. He's wearing a white T-shirt, and above the neck of it I can see the little hollow at the base of his throat, and I want to dip my tongue into it and lick upwards over the gristly triangle of his Adam's apple, and feel its tremor as he swallows; and up over his chin, and his stubble is invisible but my tongue would feel the prickle of it on the surface of his skin. And I want to take his soft bottom lip between my teeth, and I want to feel him close his mouth over my moustache.

Where his fingers rest on my wrist, the hairs stand on end.

I wonder, does he know what I'm thinking? Maybe he does: he licks his lips.

"Sorry, I didn't hear me phone," he tells me. "It's mad in there. D'you wanna try somewhere else?"

"Home?" I ask him; some girls are getting out of a cab, and I take Steven's shrug as a yes, and grab the taxi. "Hollyoaks please, mate."

:::::::

He's explaining every detail of why he was late, like he wants me to know it couldn't be helped. Which of the staff phoned in sick, what they said on the phone; who he rang to ask to come in; who said no, who said yes. What time they turned up. It's okay though, I understand. I've got a business too, so I know you can't just leave it in the lurch.

We don't touch as we sit here in the back of the taxi: there might as well be another person sat between us, for all the distance. Well, you never know with cab drivers, what they're like, you know?

I don't know what Brendan meant by _home_. Home to his bed, I guess, and that's fine cos it's his night off and he needs to relax too, and I know he's not relaxed when we're out, not properly. In bed, he's himself. We can try another date, another time.

"This'll do, mate," he says to the driver, and I look out the window and we're right by the Dog, and Brendan says to me, "We'll get a couple in before last orders."

He pays for the taxi, then we go inside. His hand is on the small of my back as I walk into the pub ahead of him, and it stays there all the way to the bar.

:::::::

It's common knowledge that we're together now. It's a small village, with a grapevine that could strangle you.

We're together. Joined in unholy fucking: that's the easy bit, the bit that worked straight away when we made up, the bit that's always worked. It's the rest of it that's hard. The _couple_ bit is where the challenge lies, but we're giving it a go. _We_. We are giving it our best shot, because this is it, last chance, and I can't let him slip through my fingers, so to speak. Not this time. Not again.

"Evening, Brendan," Jack says. "Evening, Ste. What can I get you?"

"Jameson's," I say. "And..?"

"Same," Steven says, then hesitates. "And Coke."

"Fucking sacrilege," I tell him.

The Jameson's isn't in an optic, Jack has to go backstage and get the bottle.

"You know, you're the only one who ever asks for this, Brendan," he says as he pours it. "Everyone else has real whisky."

He winks.

"Scotch?" I say. "They're welcome to it. This, my friend, is a taste of home."

I reach along the bar for a straw, and drop it into Steven's drink.

"Ta."

:::::::

We're just chatting. Just, you know, proper normal.

I try to buy us another drink, but Bren won't let me, and I give in. No point making a big deal out of it, but I'm gonna have to talk to him about it soon. He never lets me pay my way, and I should, you know? I'm not a freeloader. Most of what I earn goes back into the business and to Amy for the kids, but I can afford to buy a drink now and then. I'd like to, for him.

He calls Darren over and orders the same again. Darren puts on a funny voice.

"Trying to get the lady drunk, are we?" Then he does a little nervous laugh, like he wants to make sure Brendan knows it was a joke, in case he thinks he's serious and rips his arms off.

I laugh with Darren. He's alright, him, and his brother's gay and I know he's not one of them homophobics.

Brendan gives him a stare to freak him out, then buys him a drink.

:::::::

Darren's okay. He's had his share of troubles, some of his own making, but tragedies too. Him and Nancy, they lost a baby like we did, Eileen and me. And then they dusted themselves off.

He's scared of me, I can see it: probably thinks I'm a psycho, but I don't hold it against him. It is, after all, the popular consensus. Never froze me out though, him or his dad, and that means something. Maybe it's because they've both done time, so they know things ain't black and white.

Steven's gone to the gents. Jack and me, we're jawing as he wipes down the bar.

"It's good to see you looking so well, Brendan, especially after..." He opts for discretion, the mark of a true barman. "Your young man, too. When I think what he was like as a kid, and then see him now. He should be very proud of himself, coming through like that. Just goes to show, you can never write people off."

I meet his eyes for a second, and we understand each other. Then he looks across the bar, and I follow his gaze, and there he is. My young man? I cringe a bit at the words, but Jesus, look at him. He's on his way back to me, but he's stopped and he's standing talking to some people at a table. Girls. Maybe they're customers of his at the deli. Would it be okay if they were lads he was talking to? I don't know.

I read his lips: _I better get going_, he says, and I wonder, is he saying that because he thinks I'm gonna get antsy if he keeps me waiting? And then he looks at me and smiles, and Christ, if Jack flicked a switch to kill the lights, I swear I'd still be able to see Steven because he's where the light is, it's inside him. And he's coming back to me because he wants to.

I stand up as he gets near.

"Ready to go?" I ask him. Everywhere from my throat to my crotch is thrumming.

"Yeah," he says, and I feel the sound of the word.

I knock back the dregs of my whiskey.

"Night, Ste," Jack says, and then to me, "Night, son."

We head for the doors but I stop Steven before we get there, and turn him to face me, and tilt his chin up and kiss him, and then we go.

:::::::

We kiss in the pub. Not, like, full-on snogging, cos it's disgusting when you see people playing tonsil tennis when you're just trying to have a drink, innit. Just a kiss. Then we kiss on the walk back. Against a wall, and I feel his cock bulging in his jeans. And then in the middle of the street, with people walking right past us.

I think I'll be stripped and in his bed the minute we get in, but I'm not. We're on the sofa, like if we were teenagers, snogging our faces off and copping a bit of a feel. I can't help laughing, and luckily, he laughs too. He says I laugh like a donkey and he thinks it's bloody annoying, and have I always laughed like that? I tell him yeah, I have, it's just, well, he won't of heard it all that much, will he? Cos we haven't laughed all that much, not before.

He gets up and goes over to the kitchen, he's getting a drink of water I think. He's got his back to me and I go over and touch his wrist, but this time when he turns around he doesn't look at me, he gets hold of my face and kisses me. I open my mouth and let him in.

:::::::

There's plenty of eyes I've looked into. Plenty of mouths I've come into. Plenty of lads – his age, or a couple of years younger, or sometimes a few years older – that have lain spread open beneath me, for my pleasure and for theirs. Mostly, they meant nothing. One meant something; maybe two. But nobody has come close to this, to him.

He's beautiful, but it's not that. It's the sense that I can't extricate myself from him. His pain is my pain. His need is my need. My happiness – to the extent that I can ever be happy – is because of his. I am dependent on him, and it scares me to death.

I banish the thought, and I concentrate.

He's on his back, and I'm in him about as deep as it's possible to go. His legs are curled around me, and his arms flail, grabbing at me, my hair, my arms, my back. I look at his face. He's frowning and his eyes are squeezed shut, and a tear trickles out of the corner of one of them and I catch it with my tongue. He's not distressed: I'd sense it if he was. What it is, is that he's emotional.

He's breathing fast but he's not there yet. I adjust the angle of his pelvis with a hand beneath his thigh, and I move inside him, tiny movements that will find his sweet spot and set him on fire. He cries out: I've found it, and I pull out a couple of inches and push in again, so my cock rubs him in the right place, and he tightens in waves, and fuck, it feels good, and his cheeks puff out as he pants, and then he makes this kind of whimpering sound that gets higher and louder, and as his cum spatters onto my chest he screams, and I feel like I'm the king of the world.

I haven't come yet, and I fancy a change of scene. I ease out of him carefully so the condom doesn't come off, and I give him a kiss and taste the salty sweat on his top lip, and then I manhandle him onto his hands and knees. He's still catching his breath.

:::::::

He has to hold me up by my hips because I'm, like, shaking a bit. My arms feel wobbly but I lock my elbows and hope for the best. I feel amazing.

I can't believe he's still hard, but he is, and he puts it in me from behind really easily. He's being careful though. He's like that, he knows it might hurt a bit when we've already, you know... when we've already done it once or twice. He asks if I'm alright and I say yes, and so then he lets go of my hip with one hand and strokes up my back, and I feel it sliding on the sweat there, and then he grips my shoulder, and I'm ready when he pushes right the way in. Fuck. Fuck, fucking hell. I can feel his balls hitting my bum, and I feel like he's filled me up like you wouldn't think was even possible.

I turn my head and bite the fingers of the hand that's holding my shoulder. His knuckles are white, and I can feel him bruising me; same where he's gripping my hip.

This is what it's like to be alive. It's magic.

When he comes, he sounds like an animal. Usually, he's got words, clever words and long words, and that's how everyone else knows him. But I know him like this, when all his words have gone and all he's got left is this, this roar, and it's because of me. I make him like that.

My arms give out and I fall face down on the bed, and he's flat out on my back, and he's so heavy I can't hardly breathe so I struggle a bit, and he gets the message and rolls us onto our sides. His cock is still inside me, but it's not hard any more.

He's holding me tight and he's kissing my neck and my ear, and it's not like he's doing it to warm me up for another go. I know him, see, I know that he's gonna go to sleep in a minute. No, he's doing it, the kissing, because... well, because it's lovely.

:::::::

I have a moment of panic when I wake up – after how long? An hour? Two? - and realise my cock is still inside him. Shit, what if the blood supply's been cut off and it's..?

He must have sensed my alarm because he wakes up, or maybe he hasn't been to sleep.

"Your willy's in me bum," he says, and he laughs that ridiculous fucking laugh, and something inside his body contracts because of it, and I feel... Blood supply is just fine, thank you. I start to nudge against him, but he's uncomfortable now, it's obvious. Not surprising when you think about it. So I pull out, and go and get rid of the condom, and when I come back to bed we lie facing each other. My fingerprints show up as dark smudges on his collar bone.

"Sorry about that," I tell him, and kiss the marks. "That's the only kind of bruises you'll get from me."

"I know," he says, and I feel him kiss my hair.

We talk quietly, about nothing much, and we kiss some more. I stroke the smooth skin of his flank, and I feel his little cock starting to get hard against my belly, and I look at his eyes and they're darkening, and his breath is coming quicker. I roll away from him and put a fresh rubber on, and he finds the KY and we lie face to face again, and he shrugs his leg over my hip and reaches behind himself to lube himself up. He bites his lip as he does it. I stroke his thigh, and feel the hairs against the palm of my hand, and the muscles. The maleness of it, the masculinity, is thrilling. The thought startles me.

He smiles, and I kiss his lips, and when he's ready we will make love again.

_Make love_? Jesus. Jesus.

But yeah, I guess that's what we'll do.


End file.
